


Seahawk and Mermista, sitting in a Tree

by WhatLetterAreWeTalkingAbout



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Its mostly just fluff and Glimmer trashtalking, She-ra Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27363079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatLetterAreWeTalkingAbout/pseuds/WhatLetterAreWeTalkingAbout
Summary: Mermista and Seahawk are polar opposites; there's no way they should get along, let alone be dating! Or at least, that's what Glimmer thinks.
Relationships: Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19





	Seahawk and Mermista, sitting in a Tree

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2019, right after finishing watching the second season of She-Ra! It's pretty old writing and not my favorite, but I still think it's cute and maybe a Seamista fan would like it. I can't help but love Seamista...M/F but unmistakably bi is the best type of M/F. It's set in between Season 2 and Season 3, and includes a few headcanons including Mermansta, who is Mermista's butler/helper being selectively mute and using ASL, and that Mermista had abandonment issues stemming from her mothers death and her fathers disappearance, and that Adora is a silly. This was really just an excuse to write a bunch of unrelated Seamista scenes and insert all of my ideas. Anyways enjoy :3c

**“Don’t you think it’s kinda weird that Seahawk and Mermista are together?”**

It wasn’t long after the Princess meeting that Glimmer was asking this. It was a simple meeting –the horde had been quiet for once, and there wasn’t much to talk about, and predicting their next moves had been done several times over already. The meeting had consisted of making a delivery route for the rations of their bases. Boring.

It was an uninteresting event–aside from Mermista, that is. The Salinas Princess was in an unnaturally good mood. Her rude comments were at an odd minimum, and when she thought Glimmer wasn’t looking, she glanced out the window and smiled, chin on her hand. Glimmer had been quick to call her out, to which Mermista absently responded with, **“Yeah, whatever, it’s nothing.”** Which meant it was certainly something.

Glimmer thought she would find out before Mermista left; but she didn’t. At the end of the meeting, Glimmer casually made her way over to the grumpy princess, but they barely exchanged any words before Mermista rolled her eyes and pointed down the corridor – **“My ride’s here.”** She had said, and lo and behold, was Seahawk bounding down the hallway. As always, he greeted Mermista with an overtly-affectionate song, and as always, she groaned and pushed him away, and then they were gone.

Glimmer never got to find out what was distracting Mermista, and she wanted to think about that other than the second route of ration deliveries that her mom insisted she took care of for whatever reason; she wasn’t becoming queen anytime soon, so whatever.

**“Together?”** Adora echoed. She was sitting on the ground, cross-legged, polishing her sword. She could see Glimmer’s reflection in her sword, the sparkly purple puff of hair barely-visible over the border of the hanging bed, where Glimmer was lying upside-down.

**“What’s weird about it?”** asked Bow. He was sitting against the window with the very-nice pillows, carefully whittling a wooden figurine with the sharp edge of his arrow. He had left his knife at home, like an idiot.

**“They never act like they’re dating –but they obviously are.”** Glimmer said. She had a vague idea of what ‘dating’ looked like; being a sheltered princess, her main idea of dating people consisted of Netossa and Spinnerella, and of Bow’s dads, George and Lance. She had seen them together; they enjoyed each other’s company. They laughed at each-other and hugged a lot and sometimes they even held hands. It was crazy. **“They’re together all the time –Seahawk is at Sailneas way too much to be a coincidence –and you don’t just invite people to the Princess Prom to be a ride.”**

**“Mermista just pretends not to like him.”** Bow answered easily, shrugging.

**“Then why are they together?”** Glimmer asked.

**“Wait –why is that weird?”** Adora stopped polishing her sword –it looked pretty good anyways –resting it on her knee. **“If they’re next to eachother, than they’re together. It’s that simple.”**

Bow noticed Adora’s newly-sharpened sword lying against her knee. He thought about sword-safety. He didn’t say anything.

**“Ugh, Adora, did they not teach you anything in the Horde?”** Glimmer groaned, hands on her head, sounding quite a lot like Mermista.

**“Wha –of course they did!”** Snapped Adora, who did not know what a duck was. She glared up at Glimmer’s head as Glimmer turned around so she could more effectively glare back at her.

**“She doesn’t mean together like that, Adora,”** explained Bow, much more patient than Glimmer ever was. **“She means together like romantically. They’re together, like double-friends; it’d be kind of like I and Glimmer’s friendship, but -,”**

**“That’s a bad example, Bow!”** Glimmer interrupted, waving her hands to chase away the thought of it. **“I’m thinking of like Spinnerella-and-Netossa type of thing! They don’t just like each-other; they love each-other. They like hanging out and stuff, but they’re like –uh,”**

**“They’re committed to being together, being open with each-other, and working out problems with team-work and mutual understanding!”** Bow supplied. His fathers had given him many lectures about healthy relationships and insisted that, along with the many history books in their library, that Bow familiarize himself with self-love and healthy romance; it was originally in case he wanted to maybe date someone at his apparent University of Historic Enterprises. It wasn’t quite as necessary in a war-zone, but it served Bow quite well anyways.

**“Oh.”** Said Adora. She still didn’t quite understand.

**“That’s exactly what it is!”** said Glimmer, **“Which is why it’s so weird that Seahawk and Mermista are dating. It’s more than just, like, tolerating each-other; you have to like each-others company! Seahawk obviously is into her –but it doesn’t seem like Mermista’s onboard.” Adora** laughed at that. It sounded like a joke.

**🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟**

_Wow, documents have reached a new level of boring._

Mermista thought, absently doodling an octopus in the corner of a document labeled **“Wheat growth effected by water-resistant weeds, soil over-saturated. More information below.”** The wheat fields, far in-land, received fresh ocean-water delivery from Mermista herself due to a really annoying group of endangered beavers blocking the water flow. Tragically, they were protected from being moved. However, after some dolt spilt an entire water-tank onto the field, the crop found itself sitting in stagnant water, attracting mosquitos and killing the wheat instead of the weeds; this had happened over three weeks ago, and the water still sat there, and Mermista was trying to reschedule several meetings so she could haul her water-powered ass over to the farmlands and personally move the water and hopefully drown some mosquitos in the process.

_I wonder if I need to write a letter to the scientific community to let them know._

She flipped her thumb down the paper and discovered three additional pages she hadn’t noticed. One of them included the words “in-depth details of the water effect of the wheat roots.” 

_Is it morally wrong to frame Mermansta for my murder?_

Nah, she didn’t have the energy to do that. She simply had to finish reading this, put a decent amount of thinking into rescheduling her meetings with the town leaders, write a response to Queen Angella’s appeal about the beginning of a about a water navy (yay, signing up for more work.), and go over an apparent ‘horde-sighting’ at a town meeting. Wasn’t she forgetting something…? Oh. She also had to go deal with a hygiene concern in the local well.

Main problem of inheriting a run-down kingdom? Nobody fucking lived there. If she wanted something done, she had to do it herself.

_If I knew where dad was, I think I’d sue him._

Okay, but if she did that, she’d have to fucking sign more documents. Best to deal with the ones right in front of her. She spared herself one sympathetic glance to the fading sunrise –she had spent all fucking day reading this bullshit –before looking back –wait. Was that…?

**“Mermansta.”** Mermista stood abruptly. **“I’m gonna need some time off.”**

**“Seahawk?”** Mermansta signed tiredly.

**“Whatever.”** Mermista said.

She jumped off the balcony.

Water-impact didn’t mean anything to Mermista; she shape-shifted easily into her mermaid form and from there she swam towards the shadow of her favorite boat; she was there in record time. If only someone had been recording.

**“Seahawk!”** Mermista cried, landing on the deck of Dragon’s Daughter Four, back in her human form.

**“Wha –MERMISTA!”**

Oh wow. If only someone had been recording that –Seahawk must’ve jumped like ten feet in the air. Mermista grabbed Seahawk by the arm to prevent him from stumbling right over board. **“Yeah, it’s me.”** She smiled, letting go. **“Don’t make a big deal out of it.”**

**“Big deal? Why, you almost gave me a heart-attack!”** Seahawk clutched his chest with one hand, other arm out to retain his balance. After only a moment of Mermista’s dead-pan stare, he regained his posture and straightened out his mustache. **“Not that it compares to the many, dangerous, exciting adventures that I have just went on, of course. I was surprised, is all.”**

**“Yeah, sure you were.”** Casually, Mermista leaned against the starboard, glancing at her fingernails. **“So, are you like, happy to see me or what?”**

**“Words cannot describe just how happy I am to see you, my dear Mermista!”** Seahawk sang, throwing his arms out wide.

Oh, awesome, no rejection! Mermista pushed off from the starboard and kept a resigned expression as she accepted Seahawk’s greeting-hug. **“Wow, thanks. I’m happy to see you too.”** She didn’t let the hug linger for too long –when you’re a princess, you learn not to let happy things last too long; it makes it harder to return to the fuckton of documents afterwards. However, she did allow him to take her hand, although she just pretended not to notice. **“Where did you go this time?”** she asked.

**“To the end of the world!”**

**“I don’t buy that.”**

**“You caught me, princess.”** Seahawk sighed, shrugging, **“I merely ventured north of Salineas for a time –I found only water. And a sea monster. As well as an island full of very big monsters. However, I dropped my fishing pole off-board and I thus had to return before I ran out of fish.”**

**“Sounds boring.”** Mermista mocked. She was already excited to hear him recount his tales.

**“Oh, yes, not half as exciting as my other adventures.”** Seahawk agreed, and Mermista nodded along consolingly (and a little bit sarcastically), **“What of you, my dear Mista? Don’t tell me –the kingdom collapsed in my absence.”**

**“Nope, you returned just in time.”** Mermista said, waving her hand absently. **“If I had to spend another minute reading documents, though, I would’ve burnt it down.”**

**“Burnt it down –that’s my thing! Though –say, documents?”** Seahawk let go of her hand –which was fine because Mermista totally didn’t want to hold his hand anyways –and a concerned expression fell over his face. **“I’m not –distracting you, are I? Mermista, I don’t mean to keep you from your duties -,”**

**“Uh, there is no way I’m going back to documents,”** Mermista said stoutly, arms crossed, **“when I could talk to you instead.”**

**“Oh!”** smiled Seahawk.

**“The docks aren’t that far away.”** Mermista mentioned, looking at her kingdom’s silhouette. She could swim the length in a few minutes, but on the windless day, Seahawk’s vessel would be going at a snail’s pace. Perhaps it would take an hour to get back, maybe more, maybe less. **“There’d be no point swimming back. Why don’t I just stay here, and you can like, tell me about your adventures. That sounds like a really great idea; we should do that.”**

**“Why, of course! Allow me to begin my tale…”**

Mermista sat and listened for a very long time. It took a while for the ship to reach docks –Mermista might have been influencing the water a bit, but maybe she wasn’t. You can’t prove it –and Mermista thought about how late she was going to have to stay up to catch up on her documents. However, when she listened to Seahawk’s excited retelling, she found she didn’t quite mind, so long as they got to be together, just for a bit.

**🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟**

**“If you’re in a relationship with someone, then you must spend a lot of time with them.”** Adora said thoughtfully. **“You must like them a lot. To be with them so much.”**

**“Not just like -you’d have to love them,”** Glimmer corrected.

**“Exactly. You’d have to enjoy their company or else it wouldn’t be worth it. Like being partners with someone, but like forever.”** Said Bow.

Bow thought about his dads, George and Lance; they were almost always together. They studied history together, after all, and rarely ever did research at different sites, sometimes not even different rooms, so they could discuss their theories and findings. It was all work –library-type work, which Bow found quite boring –but they made it fun. Bow would guess about half of their discussions about history were jokes and mostly just laughing at themselves. Even with the choice to be apart, his dads would choose to spend time together.

Glimmer thought about her parents –they didn’t interact much, because one of them was dead. But her mother was always thinking of him and talking about how amazing he was; that he was smart and creative and hard-working. Even when he was gone, Angella still loved him and she showed it in little ways, from visiting his stained-glass picture to smiling at his mention. Glimmer wished she had known him. Her mother must have loved him a lot.

Adora thought about Catra. However, she didn’t think about her for long, and quickly distracted herself with comparing the relationship with Spinnerella and Netossa; they were the first people Adora had ever seen in a ‘relationship’ and they were her default idea of it. Supporting each-other, defending each-other, occasionally doing that kissing thing. It seemed like they liked –or, uh, loved –each other a lot.

Each one of them compared their relationship-prototypes with Mermista and Seahawks’.

Were their conversations filled with laughter and inside-jokes? No, Bow concluded, they were full of Mermista groaning and rolling her eyes.

Did Mermista sound like she loved him, or that she wanted him gone? Well, she certainly didn’t act like she wanted him around, Glimmer thought.

Is it too late to ask the difference between a friendship and a relationship? Adora wondered.

**🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟**

_Boom! Crash! Lightning flash!_

**“IT WAS THE BUTLER!”** Mermista yelled, throwing an accusing finger at Mermansta. The sitting room dimmed as she spoke, the bolt’s light fading before Mermista even began. Mermansta sighed –it was always the butler.

The sitting room was where Mermista spent most of her free-time in the castle. The highly antiquate walls were carved into bookshelves, crammed with books –most of them informational, full of rich history and science, pristine and preserved, a stark difference between the cracked spines and tattered pages of Mermista’s favorites; her murder mystery novels, which were read and re-read over and over.

Mermista wasn’t particularly fond of murder, but she did enjoy a good mystery. When she wasn’t swamped by work or exhaustion, she read these books and took notes in case she ever found herself in the place of Sealock Holmes. However, there was more to being a great detective than the art of deduction –you had to have some flair, too, and this is where Seahawk came in.

**“Fantastic, as always!”** Seahawk praised, as Mermista lowered her arm. **“The expression! The emotion! However…”**

**“However…?”**

**“A little late on the lightning, Mista.”**

Mermista groaned in frustration. She could never time that stupid part right. She had to admit, she was a pretty great detective, but it was always the reveal that threw her off; she never could get it quite as dramatic and perfectly-timed as was written in the novels. **“I suppose I noticed.”** She admitted, crossing her arms. It would’ve been perfect otherwise.

Mermansta waved to get her attention and signed, **“I thought it was dramatic.”**

**“Thanks,”** Mermista signed back, grumpily adding, **“How necessary is lightning anyways?”**

**“Why, it’s VERY important, Mermista! How could you suggest such a thing?”** Seahawk gasped, shaking his head adamantly. **“Mermansta, surely you must agree –the lightning makes the scene! It’s perfect; the thunder quiets the audience -,”** he signed ‘quiet,’ as though smoothing over the waves of the ocean, **“The tension rises in the silence,”** he mimicked the expression of what appeared to be a terrified sealion, **“Then –the REVEAL! How shocking! The LIGHTNING! The flair! It cements the whole thing! It gives the impression of the storm itself agreeing! It is a must!”**

Mermansta thought on this for a moment, before slowly nodding his hand yes. **“It’s necessary.”** He motioned solemnly.

**“Alright, so it’s necessary.”** Mermista agreed reluctantly. Even though it was hard to do, she supposed she agreed; no reveal scene was the same without some sort of loud sound to really hammer it in. **“But, big problem, I can’t exactly predict lightning.”**

**“Sure you can!”** Seahawk said, jumping up. He trotted up to Mermista and cheerfully patted her shoulder. **“There is no need to be frustrated! Did you not mention that you could sense lightning?”**

**“Well, yeah.”**

**“Perhaps it would help to describe it!”**

**“That sounds dumb.”**

**“Well, how dumb can it be?”** Seahawk asked, casting a hand to the murder scene they had set up, **“We’re basically playing pretend. I think that describing lightning will fit in perfectly!”**

Mermista considered this –she supposed they were kind of playing pretend, which was stupid. She was pretty sure that Frosta didn’t even do that anymore. She was pretty sure that nobody did that. She should probably feel pretty embarrassed about that, but it was hard to feel that way when she was figuring out a murder. She was with her two favorite people in the world –Seahawk and Mermansta. They didn’t complain about acting out murder novels. Seahawk often suggested it.

Mermista glanced out the window. Rain was pounding on the glass, but the sky was silent of thunder and dark without lightning. The clouds were made out of water; she could tell what was going on with them the same way she could feel the strength of a wave without even touching the water. She could tell when a cloud was forming by focusing on vapor rising in hot air and freezing high in the sky. If she listened very closely to the storm-clouds, she could hear the small clumps of ice bouncing around within it, hitting each-other and sending off small jolts of electricity; it made her hands cold. It also allowed her to pass on static electricity and shock Seahawk.

**“Okay –so like, the clouds are like frozen vapor and stuff, which is water.”** She began. Mermansta already knew that. It was a toss-up whether or not Seahawk knew it. **“If I focus on it, my hands get all cold, because there’s all this ice bouncing all over the place inside of the cloud. When they hit each-other -,”** she paused as some ice-clumps hit eachother, **“There’s like a tiny shock in my fingers. And like, my whole hand is cold because of the ice, but when the ice-blocks hit each-other a lot, the tips of my fingers get colder than my hand. And the top of my hand -,”** she pointed to her wrist and palm, **“Feel really light. I guess cause like the protons or whatever are knocked to the top of the cloud. The colder and lighter my hands feel, the sooner lightning strikes.”**

**“Cool.”** Signed Mermansta.

**“How far away is lightning?”** Seahawk asked. He didn’t know what a proton was. It sounded cool, though.

**“It’s in the cloud, so pretty close.”**

**“Time-wise!”** Seahawk corrected.

Mermista thought about this. She held up her hands to the window. It felt like she had picked up something light assuming it was heavy –she swung her hand up a bit too fast and nearly clocked herself. So, her hands felt pretty light, to say the least. She reached out and touched Seahawk’s shoulder and he yelped and said, **“That’s cold!”** so her hands felt pretty cold, to say the least.

**“Oh!”** Mermista quickly shoved Seahawk back to his spot. **“Okay, I got it! Thunder’s going to happen in a second –and then lightning! Okay, okay, watch!”**

Everyone scrambled back to their places. Seahawk sat on the couch, pretending to sob into his hands, while Mermansta stood forlornly by the door, hidden in shadow. Mermista stared out the window, her hand stroking her chin and she pondered. Thunder rolled across the sky, rumbling, and the chill in her hands intensified. **“Someone in this room has blood on their hands.”** She said slowly, feeling electricity at her fingertips,

**“What do you mean, Sealock?”** Seahawk asked meekly. **“…Do you know who killed my father?”**

Silence fell over the room for a moment. This was the time for tension to rise. Experimentally, Mermista curled her hand into a fist, pressing the feeling of the ice and the protons together.

**“THE BUTLER DID IT!”** Mermista yelled, spinning and pointing.

_Boom! Crash! Lightning flash!_

**“Fantastic!!”** Seahawk cheered. Mermansta reached over and swatted him to shut him up. **“Oh, right! I mean –WHA?! Butler Mermansta –how –how could you? I thought of you as a brother –and you murdered our –MY FATHER! WHY?!”** Seahawk collapsed onto the armrest, sobbing.

Mermansta shrugged. **“I have been caught.”** He signed unapologetically.

Mermista laughed, clasping her hands together and ineveredently causing another lightning strike. **“That was totally awesome!”** she grinned, high-fiving Mermansta. **“Okay, Seahawk, it’s your time!”**

**“You better have a good story.”** Mermansta signed.

Seahawk sprung up from fake-sobbing. **“I thought of quite the murder-mystery during my latest adventure –I call it, _‘The Case of the Missing Treasure Chest and Also a Murder Mystery!_ ’”**

**🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟**

**“Obviously they’re close, because they’re together all the time,”** Glimmer admitted, **“But I just wonder like, how? They’re so different –Seahawk’s so loud, and Mermista’s grumpy all the time, and wouldn’t that be boring for Seahawk and annoying for Mermista?”**

**“Well, you don’t have to the same to like each other -,”** Bow began, ready to dish out some great relationship advice that his dad had told him, but Glimmer interrupted him.

**“What does Mermista even do for fun?”** she asked. She had seen Mermista several times now, and each and every time, Mermista gave no inclination of liking anything and seemed perfectly cast in the role of apathetic and aloof queen, except for one time she laughed when describing pushing Seahawk off of his boat.

**“Oh, I know!”** Adora cried, waving her hand. She was still iffy on the idea of doing unproductive things simply for pleasure, because it was a waste of time when one could have much more fun training and preparing for inevitable battle. **“I bet she trains her water powers.”**

**“That’s not fun, that’s work!”** Glimmer said.

**“It’s productive!”** Adora argued.

**“We all have different ideas of fun.”** Bow said quickly, patting Adora’s hair-puff comfortingly. **“I bet that Mermista loves to sit on her throne! She does that all the time. Whenever we visit, she’s always waiting on her throne and polishing her trident. I remember one time she was reading a book.”**

**“Well, I think she should like practicing her powers,”** said Adora, still a bit annoyed, even after Bow had consoled her.

**“Well, I think that Mermista’s hobbies are glaring at people and being rude.”** Said Glimmer. She was thinking about the time that Mermista had glared at her and been rude, which may or may not have been prompted by Glimmer glaring at her and being rude.

**“Okay, but that it might seem that way ‘cause -,”** Adora, who liked Mermista a lot because she had blue hair, looked ready to argue again and Bow casually changed the subject.

**“What does Seahawk do for fun?”**

**“ADVENTURE!”** Adora said.

**“Set boats on fire!”** Glimmer put in.

**“Sail the seas!”** Bow added.

**“Basically, nothing that Mermista likes to do.”** Glimmer said definitively.

**🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟** **🐟**

Mermista did not have a day off, but if she timed her meetings right, she might be able to have one. With every pile of documents she finished reading and responding to and every problem she solved and every meeting she attended, there were more documents and problems and meetings –this meant that the time she had to do things like relax or read or hang out with Seahawk was within the small bubbles that appeared between the meetings and letters.

However, a few hours in Mermista’s schedule had opened up; she was going to Bright Moon, which not only allowed her to spend time with Seahawk on the boat-ride there (yes, she could swim, but she chose to boat with Seahawk), but also caused a brief opening of free-time between her return and the re-beginning of her work.

In a time of war, a great feeling of suspense and fear hangs in air –it is up to the queen to appear calm and confident, for the sake of her people, especially when leaving the kingdom without her divine protection for a time. The fact that Mermista powered Sailneas’s defense amplified this, and so Mermista did her best to look cool and collected before leaving and upon coming back. It helped give her people the sense that Mermista knew what she was doing, knew how to protect them. She would spent her free time doing impressive busy-work, such as practicing her waterpowers or simply walking around town talking to her citizens, looking as un-stressed as possible.

In this case, Mermista was to return to Sailneas, do her little routine of waving at her kingdom’s small population, gave a brief speech about how great the meeting went, and then there was a five hour gap between her return and a briefing meeting with Mermansta.

**“So, we have like five hours to do whatever we want.”** Mermista explained, pointing at the schedule. **“We need to allocate our available time to our best possible abilities.”**

**“Sorry, what?”** Seahawk asked.

**“Okay, whatever, sorry –I still have my ‘Meeting Voice’ apparently.”** Mermista and Seahawk had only just boarded the ship to Bright Moon; it boarded only the two of them, because it was efficient, and because the last time she had brought an accounted official with her, all they did was point out the weather and be boring. She had literally just left a meeting with Mermansta and the rest of the castle crew and had used her boring meeting voice in order to be official. She was done with that now. **“We don’t have a lot of time. What are the coolest things we could do?”**

Seahawk nodded along to this. Mermista put her chin on her hands. Seahawk stroked his mustache. This required a lot of thinking.

**“I KNOW!”** Seahawk cried, jumping up. **“We can adventure! I know the perfect place –“**

**“No, we’re adventuring next week.”** Mermista interrupted, jabbing her finger at the schedule. **“There’s that seamonster breeding ground or whatever that’s way too close to the What’s-it-name Town; the leader-dude asked me to come change the tides so the monsters will go somewhere else. You’re coming with me, and then we’re gonna go check out this cool underwater cavern leader-dude told me about.”**

**“Oh. Well, I suppose that adventuring can wait until then.”** Seahawk said, though he looked a bit downcast without his favorite pastime on the table. Mermista could tell, because Seahawk’s mustache shine abruptly disappeared. Similar to Mermista and the princess, the color quality of Seahawk’s mustache and hair served to give some hints about his emotional state. It was pretty easy to find out when he was sad that way.

Mermista helpfully patted him on the shoulder. **“Chill out, Seagull.”** She said, smacking him on the side of the head lovingly. **“I know you’re disappointed, but we’ll adventure next week, and there’s a ton of other super-cool things that we can do with our time, anyways.”**

Seahawk laughed lightly, mustache brightening. He fixed his hair, disrupted from Mermista’s smack, **“Speaking of seagulls, I did want to practice the seagull speak I’ve learned so far.”**

Mermista squawked in response and then laughed at Seahawk’s baffled expression. **“Okay, yeah, clearly we need to go over it.”** She said, writing down ‘seagull class’ on the schedule. **“I said ‘sure’, by the way. I expected better of my star pupil.”**

**“Well, I knew that, of course!”** Seahawk huffed. **“I was just wasn’t ready, is all. Anyways, we don’t have to do it for long –plenty of time for extra activities.”** Seahawk grabbed the schedule and flipped the parchment over so he could write on the blank side. At the top, he wrote ‘ideas!!’ Proudly, he said, **“Now, we can write all the things we want to do, and decide!”**

**“Okay.”** Said Mermista, handing him the quill. It was from the feather of an sandpiper, the worlds cutest sea bird. **“We need to write more sea shanties. The last ones were awesome.”**

**“We should practice our instruments! My accordion has been growing dusty. And you haven’t practiced the penny whistle in quite some time.”**

**“Fine, but I don’t know why you get the accordion.”** Mermista rolled her eyes.

**“I’ll teach it to you! Oh –we should go bird watching by the coast while we do so! Maybe we’ll see sandpipers, the cutest sea bird!”**

**“While we’re there, we should collect more seashells. We’re almost done the dragon sculpture. We literally just ran out of blue seashells, though.”**

**“Did you bring your book, Mista? Perhaps afterwards, we can read a few chapters of that new Mer-Mystery.”**

Mermista nodded at this idea. **“Yessssss –I just know that Madam Ottereyes is the killer. Her alibi made no sense at all. I mean, how she could have been at the same place that Julia Wavecrest was and somehow not be noticed at all is just unbelievable. They literally said that Juila was really observant and everything; she totally would’ve seen her.”**

**“True, Mermista! However, have you considered that Julia might not have been there? Remember, Chester saw a ‘willowy, women’ outside of his window, and when Julia was introduced, she was described as willowy!”**

**“Uh, have you forgotten that Chester and Julia have been enemies since literally the first chapter? He’s framing her. Duh.”**

Seahawk did not want to argue Mermista’s stellar points. He held up his hands in defeat. **“We’ll get into that later, when I’m proven right, I suppose. Back to activity planning –we should catch crabs!”**

**“Why?”**

**“Why not?”**

**“Oh, wow, that was quite the argument.”** Mermista dead-panned, **“There’s no beating that one. I’m down with catching crabs, but only if you show me how to make those crab boxes. That’ll be such a good thing to show off to the other Princesses. I bet they can’t catch crabs.”**

**“I can show you how to make lobster cages, too!”** Seahawk added. **“I just remembered –I found the COOLEST island way off the shores –it’s so little, but it’s covered in rocks! I’m going to make them say ‘SEAHAWK WAS HERE’!”**

**“Seahawk and Mermista were here.”** Mermista corrected. **“I’m totally going with you. I bet that’d be the perfect place to practice the accordion and stuff –that way, no one would be able to hear you. We wouldn’t be liable for any damages.”**

**“I’ll have you know that my accordion and I are BOTH famous across the seas!”**

**“Whatever you say, Seagull. So, there’s this new restaurant that Mermansta told me makes awesome o’dorves. He said they’re even better than his. We’ve gotta check it out.”**

**“Does that mean we get to critique everyone’s fashion choices??”**

**“Yeah, duh.”**

**“Fantastic –and that reminds me of something else to do!”**

Near the end of the boat-ride, they faced a new problem –with so many ideas for activities to do together, there were now too many to choose from. The back of the schedule was black with ink. Although, out of all the problems to have, this was a pretty easy one to solve –all they had to do was make sure they had enough time to critique outfits, and everything else was honestly interchangeable. Except for the crab one. They really wanted to catch some crabs.

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**“We’ve all got different ideas of fun,”** Bow pointed out, a little bit defensively. He wasn’t sure how much he was enjoying this conversation about whether or not his friend Seahawk was in a loveless relationship. Mermista was grumpy, but surely no one was grumpy enough to dislike Seahawk. **“I think what really matters is if they can cooperate and talk to each other and stuff.”**

**“Uh, Bow,”** Adora said, **“They spend so much time together it’d be crazy if they didn’t talk.”**

**“I bet they just like sit around and stare at each other in complete silence.”** Glimmer said.

**“That’d get boring way too fast.”** Adora pointed out. She couldn’t even stare at anything for long before she started thinking about battle strategies. **“Seahawk would have to set something on fire sooner or later.”**

**“Mermista could just put it out with her water powers. Maybe that’s why they’re together…”**

**“My dads always said the most important part of a relationship is communication.”** Bow said.

Glimmer scoffed. **“Mermista can barely talk in meetings without insulting anyone.”** She might still be salty about the last meeting. **“That’s probably why they broke up the first time.”**

**“That’s mean, Glimmer.”**

**“It’s true, though! A relationship that can’t talk about serious things isn’t gonna last very long. I mean, what do they do when there’s a problem? Seahawk would probably just try to leave like he did at the Northern Point, and Mermista would probably just get mad. She’d throw him into the ocean. If I had cool water powers, that’s what I’d do.”**

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Mermista and Seahawk were sitting on Mermista’s really cool bed. Mermista was laying against the pillows, legs bent, and Seahawk laid with his head resting on her stomach and Mermista was twirling her finger around Seahawk’s hair,. Seahawk was just staring up at the ceiling. It was very quiet.

Silence.

Silence.

**“I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier.”** Mermista said quietly. Her voice shook a little bit. **“I…I wasn’t really mad at you…I was just mad at myself…and I guess…I’m sorry.”**

It took Seahawk a moment to answer. His eyes were all wet all the sudden. **“…I’m sorry too. I knew you were upset from the meeting –and I knew I wasn’t exactly being helpful, to say the least.”**

**“Yeah.”** Said Mermista, not quite knowing what else to say.

**“Why were you so upset, Mermista?”** Seahawk asked, gazing up at her.

Mermista felt her eyes get wet again and she felt angry at that. **“I fucked up the meeting.”** She grumbled, balling her fists. That morning, she had met with several other leaders of small towns of former-Sailnas people in attempts to convince them to return to the capital. She, Seahawk, and Mermansta had spent days preparing notes, reasons, and arguments to convince the town leaders that it was safe to return…and she failed. **“I was doing really good. I –I -doing the whole ‘princess thing’, ya know? Acting really formal…and proper…and polite…and stuff. If they hadn’t –if I hadn’t -,”** she choked up, biting her tongue, and Seahawk sat up so he could sit next to her.

**“One of them mentioned my father -,”** Mermista said, **“They said –they said the kingdom was better under his rule –he only wanted his town to move back if my father were ruling –and I told him that my father wasn’t going to return –and he got angry.”** Seahawk, kind of guessing what was going to come next, wrapped his arm around Mermista’s shoulders. **“He said that my father wasn’t coming back because I failed. He said my father left the kingdom because there was nothing left to fight for.”**

**“Mermista, you know that isn’t true –,”** Seahawk said comfortingly.

**“It IS true!”** Mermista snapped. **“But he was such a bitch! And I told him that! And then it went to fucking hell because I couldn’t stop being angry and the other town leaders didn’t like seeing someone-supposed-to-be-their-queen flipping out like an idiot.”** Mermista swiped away tears that were forming in her eyes. **“I fucked up the meeting and they aren’t going to come back. I ruined it.”**

Seahawk hugged Mermista as a little tear that she didn’t notice rolled down her cheek. **“That does sound like a disaster,”** he said unhelpfully, as Mermista sighed and sank a bit further into the pillows, **“I can see why you were so upset –but you didn’t ruin it –this was only the first try. You aren’t some evil queen and you certainly aren’t an idiot.”**

**“Whatever.”**

**“You haven’t been ruling for long, Mista. It’s okay to make mistakes, even big ones –remember when I first started sailing? I couldn’t stop the boat and went so far off-land that the only person around to save me was a magical mermaid princess.”**

Mermista laughed a little bit at that. She remembered that. He was a dumb-ass.

**“You didn’t just have one chance. When we’re sailing, do we give up and give home just because of one obstacle? No! We reread the map, make a new plan, and keep going. This is the same here; we wait a little while, we can focus on strengthening some aspects of Sailinas –maybe we can fix up the boat docks! –and then we can try again when you’re good at ready, and if you need it –you don’t have to be alone. Maybe next time, I or Mermansta could do it with you.”**

**“…so I didn’t fail, then?”** Mermista asked quietly.

**“Mermista.”** Seahawk took Mermista’s shoulders so she could face him. **“You have a strong and passionate soul. You fight for what you believe in. You are brave and smart –you work tirelessly to make sure Sailinas is the best it can be –anyone who doesn’t see that is a failure, not you. Even if you make a mistake, Mermista, I’ll always be here to help you.”**

**“That’s so cheesy.”** Mermista sniffled, and they hugged.

**“I love you, Mermista.”**

**“I love you, too, Seahawk.”**

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**“Are you saying they’re going to stop being together, then?”** asked Adora.

**“Well, no,”** Said Glimmer defensively, **“I just think it’s weird that they’re together. They’re so different and barely seem to share the same interests at all. It’s not that they should break up or whatever, I was just wondering how their relationship worked, is all.”**

**“I know you were just saying their relationship is weird,”** said Bow, **“But I think it’d be weirder to not have them together.”**

**“I like them together.”** Adora said, returning to polishing her sword. **“I hope they don’t ‘break up.’”** She didn’t know what that meant, either.

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The boat was very far away from shore, and Salinas was only a glimmer of lights in the distance. The sea breeze was nice. The waves were like music. There were really pretty fish swimming underneath the water and Mermista could see them and she liked them. It was really pretty out here and it was pretty cool and there was nothing for her to do.

The boat shifted to a halt. The anchor had been dropped. Mermista idly watched as Seahawk tied down the sail and stuck the steering wheel in place (he was gonna show her how to do that too. She thought it was dumb that she, the princess of the sea, didn’t know how to sail.) Finally, he trotted over and sat down next to her, and she let him lean against her, throwing her arm around his shoulders in a little side-hug.

The stars were very nice tonight. It was very beautiful and very quiet.

She could be in her castle, where it wasn’t so cold and it wasn’t so dark, but Mermista looked at the sky and the ocean and then at Seahawk, and she thought that she would rather be here.

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End file.
